Go Green and Leafy

As the days get cooler you probably survey your garden with a heavy heart. You know, like Solomon, you will have to make some difficult decisions soon. Which plants should you save from becoming crispy, frosted husks of their former selves?

The plants that pack the largest psychological wallop are the ones that will do you the most good, psychologically, they’ll be your best pals, as you work to make it through another cold season. If all can’t be saved and some priorities need to be set, move the greenest, leafiest, curviest plants to the front of the pack- ones that look like some sort of Ficus (although they are unlikely to actually be a Ficus); Ficus leaves are pretty curvy, as are Ficus stems, and Ficuses are reliably green (although every living thing does need care at least every so often). Leave those that are spike-y or don’t seem like they could have a place in an upbeat children’s cartoon to fend for themselves as days get colder.

And if you don’t have a garden and therefore lack anything at all to save? Go plastic. Good plastic that looks so real you need to reach out and touch it to see if it’s real or not is what’s required. Good plastic is especially important if you are just not good at keeping plants alive. There are fewer more depressing decorative elements that a dead or nearly-dead plant.

The reasons for going for cuddly green things are pretty straightforward. They’re what comfort us, make us feel good about where we are, and help our brains work well and gets our creative juices flowing. Cactuses may seem like a good bet because they’re able to live in the desert (and therefore more likely to cling to life if you take an extended vacation or just plain forget to water them for a month or so, but they are not. Their spikey elements tense us up and that’s not good for what goes on in our brains. Being tense is also not good for our blood pressure and physical quality of life.

Respectable scientific studies have shown that looking at green leafy plants will dramatically elevate your mood (science speak for helping you feel happier) as well as your cognitive performance and your creativity. Seeing green leafy plants is mentally refreshing, so if you’ve got tired brain after toiling away all day on office work or figuring out ways to encourage your children to get along, being around green leafy plants will power you up again but quick. Green leafy plants at work will up your engagement levels there, something that gives human resource department types a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Research has also shown that looking at green leafy plants and guided meditation have the same effects on what goes on in your head, particularly in terms of reducing distress, so if you don’t have time to meditate, there’s even more reason to keep some plants around and if you meditate around plants – kaboom – their combined effects will likely be quite impressive.

Seeing images of flowers, close-up, is also a great way to beat stress.

Whether it’s real or fake, how many plants do you need in your home or office? Surprisingly few lead to the benefits that green leafy plants can impart. You want to see one or two in each direction you look that are a couple of feet higher, taller drops the number that’s OK to one and shorter brings the allowable number to three. The issue here is our primordial tension in jungle-y sorts of growth. In our prehistory, we had trouble seeing trouble approaching in thick growth and our brains still find it difficult to look at masses of plants; we can’t help but try to peer through them to see approaching lions and tigers and bears.

If you’re thinking of building yourself and indoor green wall, science supports your plans. Research shows that they’ll freshen the air while having all the good effects on how you think and behave mentioned earlier. Studies have also determined the best size for that green wall is about 2 meters by 1 meter, bigger will lead to the opposite effects of those desired—seeing them will make you feel tense and that degrades your brain’s ability to solve problems and do other mental work.

Plants can also smell good and good smells are great, as discussed in this article. LINK Research in a dessert in the American southwest links the great smell of plants after a rain to all sorts of good psychological outcomes: “Desert dwellers know it well: the smell of rain and the feeling of euphoria that comes when a storm washes over the parched earth. That feeling, and the health benefits that come with it, may be the result of oils and other chemicals released by desert plants after a good soaking. . . . ‘The Sonoran Desert flora is one of the richest in the world in plants that emit fragrant volatile oils, and many of those fragrances confer stress-reducing health benefits to humans, wildlife and the plants themselves,’ said Gary Nabhan. . . . ‘The fragrant volatile organic compounds from desert plants may in many ways contribute to improving sleep patterns, stabilizing emotional hormones, enhancing digestion, heightening mental clarity and reducing depression or anxiety,’ Nabhan said” (“The Smell of Desert Rain May Be Good for Your Health.” 2022. Press release, The University of Arizona, https://news.arizona.edu/story/smell-desert-rain-may-be-good-your-health).

Green leafy plants are good for you mentally and physically—a few in the places where you live and work are worth the effort required to keep them watered and fed.